


I'm Not So Alone After All

by MusicPrincess655



Series: Volleyball Girls [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, Gen, Genderbending, Loneliness, Self Harm, everyones a girl, fem!kagehina - Freeform, like its so platonic guys, please dont read if that is a trigger, seriously there is self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5273930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicPrincess655/pseuds/MusicPrincess655
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama Tobio hates her boyish name and her boyish body, but most of all she hates being alone.<br/>Maybe she doesn't have to be any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not So Alone After All

**Author's Note:**

> You know what this fandom needed more of? Genderbent fics. Because you know what I love? The Haikyuu!! boys as girls. First fic for this fandom!  
> Trigger warning for self-harm, please please please don’t read if that will bother you.

Kageyama doesn’t like to think of herself by her given name, Tobio. She knows it’s not normal to think of oneself by surname, but she hates her given name. No matter how you look at it, it’s a completely masculine name. Just one more thing for people to hate about her. One more thing for her to hate about herself.

When she was young, other people had scared her. They made fun of her boy’s name, and the taunts made her shake. She learned that if she kept a scowl on her face, they would leave her alone. By the time she realized that she didn’t want to be alone at all, the scowl had settled as her neutral facial expression, and she had failed to learn any social skills.

People make fun of her, because she’s too intense, and they call her scary. Even when she tries to smile and be nice, they run away from her, saying her smile is even scarier than her scowl. She vows to never smile again. They make fun of how tall she is, too tall to be a cute girl, to lanky, with no curves and broad boyish shoulders. They make fun of every aspect of her appearance.

But sometimes her face will drop its perpetual scowl when she plays volleyball, the first and probably only love of her life. All the kids that made fun of her had to admire how fast she learns to play the sports. Her team had to respect her, even in elementary school, because she was already learning how to be a good setter.

She only gets better in middle school. She has an amazing senpai, Oikawa-san, who can hit a jump serve and look beautiful while doing it. She wants nothing more than to be just like Oikawa-san, beautiful and talented, and starts to idolize her. She doesn’t care when Oikawa-san teases her and taunts her, she just lets it roll off her back, because she’s always been teased, and if it was Oikawa-san, then it was all right.

She likes her other senpai, Iwaizumi-san, because Iwaizumi-san makes Oikawa-san stop teasing Kageyama and asks Kageyama if she’s okay. Kageyama isn’t exactly friends with Iwaizumi-san, but they respect each other, and they’re friendly enough.

One day, when she asks Oikawa-san to teach her how to jump serve, Oikawa-san almost hits her, stopped only by Iwaizumi-san. Kageyama takes a step back, scared for the first time, and doesn’t think twice about running when Iwaizumi-san tells her to take off. She never speaks another word to Oikawa-san for the rest of her time in middle school, despite the taunts that Oikawa-san throws her way, including a new nickname, Tobio-kun. Kageyama can’t stand that nickname, but she’s too scared of Oikawa-san now to say anything about it.

Middle school only goes downhill from there. Kageyama improves her setting skill exponentially, but she has a hard time making friends, even on the team. She has a hard time making what she actually wants to tell them come out of her mouth. She screams for them to “move faster” and “match my tosses” when all she really means is “let me help you win” and “where do you want my toss?” and “please accept me”.

She can feel the growing dislike her teammates have for her, how they call her the Queen of the Court behind her back, but she doesn’t know what to do about it. She starts using a razor on her hips, where her panties will hide it. At first, she does it for attention, because everyone pays attention to injuries. But she never cuts deep enough to affect her volleyball performance, and she hides the cuts from everyone, cleaning and bandaging them so they don’t get infected.

Her single mother works all day, and never has time to notice. Kageyama knows, has always known, that her mother cares about her, but it’s known in a kind of distant way, a fact that has no bearing on her life. Besides the few words they exchange over the few dinners they eat together, Kageyama never speaks to her mother. Her mother has never even seen her play volleyball before.

The loneliness only gets worse, the calls of Queen of the Court only more open, until the final tournament of her third year of middle school. She knows that her setting isn’t meshing very well, but at this point she just doesn’t know what to do to fix it, so she continues with what she’s always done. Maybe it doesn’t make her the most well-liked, but at least it works pretty well, so maybe they can still win.

A high flying shrimp with long red curls shows her that maybe someone out there is fast enough to hit her tosses, and when the crying shrimp challenges her, she accepts easily, knowing that chances are high that they’ll never meet again.

They lose the tournament after Kageyama is benched, after her teammates turn their backs on her. She starts to have nightmares about that dropped ball.

She continues to cut her hips regularly, on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, it will make something better.

She arrives at Karasuno High School with a new haircut of bangs she can hide behind and a fear of tossing quicks. Of course, of course that shrimp with the long red curls is here too. Kageyama didn’t have anything against her at first, except an annoyance that she wasted such natural athletic abilities for three years, but her loud mouth and constant challenges make her and Kageyama rivals, and Kageyama thinks she might be able to add someone the list of people she hates, which currently only includes Oikawa-san and Kindaichi.

Kageyama drops into old habits she just can’t break, telling captain Daichi-san that if she could, she would receive, set, and spike all on her own. It’s not what she really means, of course, because nothing that comes out of her mouth is what she’s really trying to say. What she actually means is that she can’t put her trust in a team again because that would give them the power to break her, and she’s already almost been broken once.

Actually, she’s kind of glad she can’t say that out loud.

She and Hinata are forced to work together in the three on three, because Kageyama refuses to be anything but the setter she worked so hard to be. She reluctantly works with Hinata on her receives, passing back and forth between each other in a park, since they’ve been banned from the gym. They meet Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima calls her the name she hates almost as much as her own, Queen of the Court. Surprisingly, Hinata stands up for her. Kageyama is surprised, not that she lets it show on her face. No one’s stood up for her in any way since the last time she saw Iwaizumi-san in middle school.

She and Hinata, with the help of Tanaka-senpai, win the three on three. More importantly, Hinata finally catches Kageyama’s quick, and some of the ghost of that dropped ball leaves Kageyama’s mind.

She starts to get better as a team player. She’s still too intense, of course, and still doesn’t always say the right thing, but aside from Tsukishima and sometimes Hinata, no one makes fun of her much, and certainly not in a way that feels mean.

They go to a training camp to get ready for the Interhigh after they just barely manage to beat Seijoh, and that only because Oikawa-san was only in for the last few points. Kageyama feels chills when she remembers how Oikawa-san looked at her. At the training camp, Hinata is far too excited, as she always is, but instead of being annoying like it used to, it’s just kind of endearing, at least as much as Hinata can be endearing.

They put their futons next to each other, and in the middle of the night, Kageyama feels a small hand snaking its way into her’s. She opens her eyes, but Hinata seems fast asleep. Kageyama considers withdrawing her hand, but thinks that this is something teammates, or even friends, might do, so she lets Hinata’s hand stay in her’s.

And if Tsukishima makes fun of her for it the next day, well, Kageyama got to spend the entire night with someone who wanted to hold her hand. It doesn’t matter to her.

Kageyama and Hinata become a kind of friends after training camp. On some weekends, they go to each other’s houses, and if Hinata thinks it’s strange that Kageyama’s mother is never home, she has the good sense not to mention it. Hinata starts calling Kageyama “Kage-chan”, and Kageyama just about loves her for the girly nickname. Still, every time she wants to laugh at one of Hinata’s jokes, she puts a hand over her mouth, forcing the corners of her lips down with her long fingers, because she still remembers how it felt when people, including Hinata, told her that her smile was scary.

The Interhigh begins, and they win one match, and then another. Kageyama can feel herself getting worked up about the match against Seijoh, where she has her chance to prove herself once and for all to Oikawa-san.

There’s no way she’s going to let them lose.

 

They lose.

They lose and it’s all her fault.

If only she hadn’t been so obvious, maybe they wouldn’t have read her in the end. Maybe she wouldn’t have lost to Oikawa-san then.

“Oi, Tobio-kun. I told you I wouldn’t lose to you today.”

Of course Oikawa-san is right here, in front of her. Of course she would come to gloat over her superiority in volleyball and her pretty face and her perfect body that every boy and most girls wanted and her charming personality that made everyone want to be her friend. Of course she would be flaunting that nickname that Kageyama hates so, so much, the boy’s name with the boy’s honorific that reminds her she isn’t female enough to be a girl and yet will never be man enough to be a boy.

Kageyama keeps her gaze focused at the ground, because she refuses to cry in front of Oikawa-san, not while she still has a shred of dignity left.

“Come on, at least look at me when I’m gloating, Tobio-kun.”

It’s that last Tobio-kun, with its mocking upwards tilt, which finally pushes her over the edge. With a wordless scream of rage, she swings her open palm at Oikawa-san’s face with all her strength. Oikawa-san staggers a few steps but keeps her feet, holding her cheek as a look of shock spreads over her face.

But Kageyama keeps moving, and she isn’t finished yet. She grabs the front of Oikawa-san’s team jersey and jumps, landing on top of her as she swings her fist at Oikawa-san’s chin again. Oikawa-san twists so the punch just grazes her, and before Kageyama can throw another, she feels strong arms- _Daichi-san’s? Asahi-san’s_ \- wrap around her waist and pull her off Oikawa-san. She only realizes now that tears are streaming down her face and that she’s been screaming, over and over, “ _Shut up! Shut up!”_ with the occasional “ _Don’t call me that!”_ thrown in.

“Kageyama, calm down,” Daichi-san’s voice says in her ear. Of course it was Daichi-san. Asahi-san would have been too timid to approach her in that kind of rage. Daichi-san swings her around to face the team, but not before she sees Iwaizumi-san running over calling “Tooru!” She just catches a glimpse of the look Iwaizumi-san throws her, and while she’s not feeling bad about hitting Oikawa-san, she does feel a little ashamed because of Iwaizumi-san. Kageyama respects Iwaizumi-san, especially since she was the only one who ever tried to be even a little nice to Kageyama.

That’s all forgotten the moment she faces her team, faces the looks of shock, and in some cases horror, they give her.

Oh shit.

They’re never going to talk to her again.

They’ve just seen her at her worst, and they’re going to kick her off the team, and the closest people she’s ever had to friends are going never going to talk to her again.

If she wasn’t so upset, she would be smug about finally causing Tsukishima to change expressions.

She sees Suga-san reaching out, maybe to help Daichi-san restrain her, but the fight has gone out of Kageyama’s body, and she sags in Daichi-san’s grip.

“Kageyama?” a small voice questions, and Hinata is sneaking her way into Kageyama’s field of vision, an unreadable expression on her face. Kageyama. Not Kage-chan, the girly nickname that Kageyama just about loves Hinata for.

Even Hinata is going to abandon her now.

Daichi-san’s grip had loosened after Kageyama had sagged in her arms, and Kageyama takes the chance to shake free and break into a run. She can hear a few shouts behind her, but nothing would make her stop now. If they were never going to speak to her again, she’d rather avoid them for the rest of high school than have them tell her to her face.

She gets to her house without any of her stuff, because she had left it behind when she ran away. It wasn’t like she would need those volleyball shoes and kneepads anyway, since there was no way they were going to let her stay on the team now.

No one is home.

Of course no one is home.

No one is ever home.

Kageyama screams then, screams as loud as her lungs would allow. She keeps screaming until she runs out of air, and then she sucks a big gulp in and screams again, until there’s nothing left for her to feel. She climbs shakily to her feet and stumbles to the bathroom. Under the sink, where her razor hides, is where she’s headed.

She hasn’t had to use that razor in so long, because she had the team, because she had Hinata.

She doesn’t have any of them anymore.

She pulls down her underwear, just enough to get to her hips. A small part of her mind notes that the razor actually isn’t that well-hidden, and if her mother had even looked under the sink, she would have found it. Just another cruel joke in the life that is Kageyama’s.

She draws the razor across her hip, noting that all of her scars have healed, and some had begun to fade away entirely. If there’s one good thing Kageyama can say about her body, it’s that scars fade silver and invisible on her skin.

She draws it again, two lines, and does the same on the other hip. None of the cuts are deep enough to do much damage, and will probably stop bleeding within the hour. Kageyama wonders again why she does this in the first place. The pain doesn’t give her a release, and she doesn’t feel better, as if punishing herself would make her feel better. In the end, it’s always the same desire for attention, which no one will ever give her, because no one will ever notice.

She finally dismisses it as just the thing she does when she feels this sad and alone, just a habit at this point.

She cleans and bandages the cuts, because even if she’s not playing volleyball anymore it would still suck to get an infection.

When Kageyama’s mother gets home, Kageyama is already in bed, already pretending to be asleep. She hears her mother poking her head into Kageyama’s room, and she expects her mother to see her asleep and move on, just like she always has.

“Tobio? Are you asleep?”

She cringes at the name, but picks her head up anyway. Might as well get this out of the way now.

“Your captain called. Said you got in a fight?”

Kageyama notes that her mother sounds surprisingly hesitant, so different from the angry or disappointed tone she was expecting. Not that she’s heard either that often, but she still expected it after she got in a fight.

“I’m sorry, Okaasan. It won’t happen again,” Kageyama says without any inflection in her voice. She knows she should sound more apologetic, but she can’t bring herself to.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” her mother asks, still in that strangely hesitant voice. Kageyama shakes her head and rolls back down to the bed.

“Tobio…?” her mother steps into her room, but that name, that goddamned man’s name, finally breaks Kageyama again.

“Why did you name me that?!” she shouts, startling her mother, who has never heard her speak much above talking volume in her life. “Why would you give me a boy’s name? Why didn’t you teach me how to be a girl? Why didn’t you teach me how to talk to other people? Why weren’t you ever here when I needed you?”

Objectively, she knows that none of this is her mother’s fault, or anyone’s fault but her own, but she’s started and now she can’t stop.

“Why didn’t you ever come to my volleyball games? Why didn’t you ever help me with my schoolwork? Why didn’t you tell me that I was making people hate me? Why didn’t you ever notice that I wasn’t okay?”

She’s sobbing too hard to continue, and her mother finally jolts out of her frozen state and practically runs over to Kageyama’s bed, wrapping her arms around her daughter.

“Oh, sweetheart, if you were so unhappy, why didn’t you tell me?” her mother asks, rocking her back and forth in a motion that Kageyama vaguely remembers from before her father died. “Your captain said that there seemed to be a lot more behind the fight than what was on the surface, but I never dreamed that you would be this miserable. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed me. I’ll be here now, I promise, but you have to tell me if you’re upset. I can’t read your mind.”

Kageyama knows her mother can’t read her mind, and doesn’t truly blame her for anything other than the masculine name. She’s just kept everything bottled up inside for so long that it all came flowing out at the only person around.

“Do you really hate your name so much?” her mother asks quietly.

“It’s a boy’s name,” Kageyama says, as a way of explanation.

“Do people make fun of you for it?” her mother asks.

“Not anymore,” Kageyama answers, leaving Oikawa-san out because she’s not so much making fun of Kageyama’s name as she’s making fun of Kageyama herself, and there’s no way Oikawa-san could know just why and how much Kageyama truly hates her given name.

“Do you want a different name, then?” her mother interrupts her thoughts.

“I don’t think it would matter,” Kageyama sighs. “Everyone calls me by my surname, mostly, and it’s not like they would switch to calling me something else even if I did change my given name.”

“Do you want me to teach you how to do your makeup and pick out clothes?”

“I don’t think that would really help anything.” Kageyama is just so tired now, exhausted from her crying fit and from the match she lost despite her and her team’s best efforts. “I’m too tall to be cute, anyway.”

“Who says you’re too tall to be cute?” Her mother sounds a little outraged now. “Whoever it was is wrong. You can be just as beautiful as any other girl.”

“You don’t have to wake me up for morning practice tomorrow,” Kageyama says as her mother leaves the room. “I’m not playing volleyball anymore. I’ll make sure I get up in time to get to school.”

“Oh no, young lady. You’re not going to school tomorrow,” her mother turns around. “Mental health is just as important as physical health, and you need a mental health day. But why aren’t you playing volleyball anymore? I thought you loved it. Weren’t you a genius setter?”

Kageyama is surprised her mother remembered even that much from their infrequent dinner conversations.

“Well, I do, but…the way the team looked at me after that fight…there’s no way they’d let me stay.”

“Do you want to talk about why you got in a fight?” her mother asks again, and this time, Kageyama feels the need to tell her.

“One of my senpai from middle school was on the team that beat us,” she says slowly. “She always made fun of me in middle school, and I was always trying to prove myself to her, even when she teased me. But her team beat us, and she called me Tobio-kun and I…I hate being called that, and it was too much after losing to her.”

“Was it much of a fight?” Her mother definitely sounds too amused now.

“I hit her twice.”

“You know when you make a fist, your thumb goes on the outside, right?” her mother grins.

“Yes, Okaasan, I know!”

“Okay. Get some sleep. You can stay home from school tomorrow.”

Kageyama does just that, pulling her blanket up over her head. She wakes up to sun shining in at a strange angle, meaning she slept long past when she normally gets up. Knowing she doesn’t have school or volleyball practice means that she just stays in bed. She kind of wishes she hadn’t left her stuff behind, because if she hadn’t she would have her phone, and then she could listen to music. Then again, there are probably a lot of angry texts on that phone, ones that she’d rather not read.

Her mother knocks on her door around noon, and Kageyama actually hauls herself out of bed. Her mother instructs her to go take a long, hot shower, insisting it will make her feel better. She does just that, putting on a fresh pair of underwear and pajamas afterwards, and walks downstairs to where her mother is cooking lunch.

“Don’t you have to go to work?” Kageyama asks. It’s been a long time since she’s seen her mother in the kitchen during the day.

“I took the day off,” her mother replies. “I wanted to catch up with you a little, since we haven’t really talked in a long time.”

They spend the afternoon curled up on the couch. Kageyama tells her mother more about volleyball and middle school and some of the teammates she thought she’d made friends with, and her mother tells stories about her job. It’s when the sun starts to go down and they’re both watching a little kid’s movie that’s making them both feel better when a knock sounds at the door, and the knock is so excited and rapid that Kageyama knows immediately who’s at the door.

“Don’t let her in,” she pleads as her mother stands from the couch. “Tell her I’m dying of illness, tell her I’m asleep, just don’t let her in.”

Her mother gives her a strange look as she goes to the door, and sure enough, Kageyama hears Hinata’s voice echo down the hall. She asks if Kageyama’s home, and if she can see her, and Kageyama’s mother answers that Kageyama isn’t feeling well today, and is sleeping right now. Hinata says that she brought Kageyama’s bag, and she hopes Kageyama feels better soon. When Kageyama’s mother offers the bag to Kageyama, she turns her phone off without looking at the fifteen new text messages on it.

Kageyama goes to school the next day, but not to morning volleyball practice. She doesn’t want to be where she’s not wanted. Luckily, no one from the volleyball team is in her class, and she gets to school during practice so she avoids seeing anyone. During lunchtime, she hides in the bathroom instead of eating, just in case Hinata seeks her out.

She bolts from the classroom as soon as class is finished, taking a strange route that will hopefully keep her from crossing the paths of anyone from the volleyball team. She makes it home unscathed.

Later that evening, when she’s trying to make some headway into her homework, there’s another knock on the door that is instantly identifiable as Hinata. Her mother isn’t home from work yet, and she contemplates just letting Hinata stay out there, until Hinata yells,

“I know you came to school today and I know you’re in there, Kage-chan, so you might as well let me in, because I’m not leaving until you talk to me!”

Kageyama sighs, because she knows Hinata means it, and walks to the door, suddenly and inexplicably very conscious of the fact that she’s wearing old sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt. She opens the door to a very ruffled looking Hinata.

“Why are you avoiding us?” Hinata asks indignantly. Kageyama sighs.

“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me, after that fight. And I thought you guys would kick me off the team.”

“Why would you think that?” Hinata tilts her head, which is for some reason very cute. “We were all worried about you! We thought the Grand Queen had said something so bad that it would make you want to quit _volleyball_.”

“I…no she didn’t say anything like that,” Kageyama looks at her feet.

“Then what did she say that made you so mad?” Hinata asks.

Kageyama mutters under her breath and Hinata screeches “I can’t hear you!” so Kageyama repeats a little louder.

“She called me Tobio-kun!”

“Why did that bother you so much?” Hinata asks after a beat of silence.

“Because she called me that in middle school to tease me, and she and everyone else always called me scary and ugly and she’s so much prettier than me and she makes friends better than me and she’s better at setting to her team than me and I’m just so sick of having a boy’s name and a boy’s honorific!” Kageyama spits out in one breath.

“You don’t think you’re pretty?” Hinata sounds offended, for some reason.

“You always tell me I’m scary when I smile, and I’m too tall, and I have shoulders like a guy, so…yeah I don’t think I’m pretty.”

Hinata gives a little shriek and actually stamps her foot before forcing her way inside and grabbing Kageyama by the wrist, dragging her to the bathroom with surprising strength.

“What are you doing, dumbass?” Kageyama cries as she and Hinata reach the bathroom and Hinata starts rifling through the drawers, pulling out various makeup products.

“I’m doing your makeup,” Hinata answers. “Sit on the toilet.”

“Hinata, that’s not going to solve anything…”

“I said sit on the toilet!” Hinata stamps her foot again and fixes Kageyama with such an intense stare that Kageyama actually gulps and sits down. Hinata brushes Kageyama’s bangs, which now reach her chin and that she has to pin back for volleyball, out of her face.

“Your bangs look good like this,” she says. “If you sweep them off to the side they frame your face.”

“I’m trying to grow them out,” Kageyama admits. “They get in the way for volleyball.”

Hinata runs a wet cloth over Kageyama’s face before drying it, and Kageyama has to admit that it feels nice to have another person touching her face. Hinata starts dusting a powder all over her face, and Kageyama tries to ignore the memories of trying to put on makeup before, always ending up looking like a clown.

Hinata hums gently as she moves through different powders on different parts of Kageyama’s face. Sometimes, Kageyama’s not even sure what exactly Hinata’s doing, but she seems to have a much better idea than Kageyama, so she stays still as Hinata does whatever Hinata’s doing, figuring that if it sucks she can just stick her head in the shower behind her.

Finally, Hinata gives one more swipe across her face and says, “Look in the mirror.”

Kageyama’s almost afraid to look, but when she finally raises her eyes, she can’t believe what she sees.

It’s her, obviously, but now her eyes look wider and softer, elegantly slanting up ever so slightly. Her bangs do frame her face, just as Hinata said, and they make the edges of her face look softer and rounder. Her cheekbones cut high across her face, and when she lifts her chin, she looks downright regal.

“See? You’re beautiful,” Hinata whispers breathlessly. Kageyama doesn’t know why exactly she sounds like she just went for a run, but she chooses to ignore it. “Besides, being beautiful doesn’t make you good at volleyball.”

It’s not funny, not at all, but it’s such a random thing to say that Kageyama instantly starts giggling. She raises her hand almost immediately, trying to hide her grin since she can’t force it down, but Hinata catches her arm.

“Why do you always hide your smile?” Hinata asks, slipping her hand down to Kageyama’s. After training camp, holding hands became normal for the two of them.

“It’s scary. You said so yourself.”

“Look at it now.”

Kageyama obligingly looks up in the mirror, expecting to see a demon face, but instead sees a still regal looking girl with eyes that are now sparkling and a gentle smile that just barely shows her teeth.

“You have a pretty smile when it’s real,” Hinata tells her.

“I…thank you. Thank you for doing my makeup, and thank you for…”

But Kageyama is cut off because she slips on the washcloth that Hinata had left on the floor. Hinata tries to catch her arm, but misses and instead latches onto the band of her sweatpants. Kageyama catches herself on the counter as Hinata pulls her pants down part of the way and gasps. Kageyama freezes because she knows exactly what Hinata saw.

“You…you…what did you do to yourself?” Hinata gasps.

“I...” Kageyama whispers, unable to finish. She’d been planning on never telling anyone about this, never doing it again if she could help it. Now that she and her mom are talking again, she’d figured she wouldn’t need to do it anymore. She’s gotten the attention she’s wanted all along.

“Why would you do this?” Hinata asks breathlessly. Kageyama still can’t find her voice, and loses it even more when Hinata bends suddenly and places a gentle kiss on her hip.

“Kageyama, you’re not breathing!” she shrieks, and Kageyama takes a sudden breath in.

“Why would you do that, dumbass?” Kageyama asks hoarsely.

“Kissing it better!”

“I’m not Natsu!”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t kiss it better!”

Kageyama giggles again, because Hinata is so damn cute right now, even if this is not a laughing situation.

“Look, dumbass, I’m not going to do it anymore. Here, I’ll prove it to you.”

She pries Hinata’s hand off her sweatpants and ducks down below the sink to grab the razor that she’s been hiding there since middle school. Hinata sucks in a breath, but Kageyama ignores her, walking out of the bathroom and out of the house until she reaches the garbage bin, Hinata hot on her heels. She lifts the lid, throws the razor inside, and drops the lid again.

“There, see? I’ll never do this again, I promise.”

“Do you pinky promise?”

“Do I what now?”

“Come on! You’ve never done a pinky promise?”

Hinata links the pinkies of their right hands together, shaking them like a handshake.

“Cross my heart, hope to die, drink a thousand needles if I tell a lie,” Hinata chants. “You have to say it too, Kage-chan!”

Kageyama rolls her eyes and repeats the chant after Hinata.

“There! Now you can’t do it again, because you promised me, and best friends don’t break promises to each other!”

“I’m your best friend?” Kageyama asks.

“Um, duh? Who else would my best friend be?”

Kageyama smiles again, and this time, Hinata smiles back at her with that grin that has more watts than the sun.

“Do you want to come inside to watch a movie?” she asks.

“Sure. By the way, is your phone broken?”

“No, why?”

“Why have you been ignoring all my texts?!” Hinata screeches, probably startling at least one of Kageyama’s neighbors. “Not just me, the whole team! Tanaka-senpai and Noya-senpai are really worried and they want to know if they need to beat up the Grand Queen for you! Suga-san might actually cry if you don’t text her back soon. Daichi-san keeps trying to tell you that you’re not in trouble since The Grand Queen didn’t make a fuss about the fight! I think even Asahi-san, Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi tried to get in touch with you.”

Kageyama knows she looks surprised, so she turns on her phone when they get back inside. Sure enough, there are almost a hundred new messages on there. She holds a hand to her mouth as she starts to sift through them, Hinata watching her intensely. The first message is from Hinata herself.

_Where are you? You left your stuff behind._

The next few are from Tanaka-senpai and Noya-senpai.

_Did the Grand Queen say something mean to you?_

_Do you need us to beat her up?_

_No one messes with our kouhai!_

The next are from Daichi-san.

_Kageyama, you’re not in any trouble. Oikawa-san didn’t raise any trouble, so this won’t affect you in any permanent way._

_Please come back to practice once you feel better._

Suga-san came next, sounding like the worried mother she always did.

_Kageyama, please let me know if you’re all right. I’m worried about you._

_Please text me back, even if you aren’t all right. It’s going to be okay._

_I really need to hear from you, because I’m starting to get very worried and if you don’t let me know you’re okay I’m coming over with soup and cookies and I will make you talk to me._

_Daichi told you you’re not in any trouble, right? Please let me know if you’re okay._

Asahi-san, timid as always, had texted a few hours after the others.

_I’m sorry if I looked scared of you, you just surprised me, that’s all. I don’t think any differently of you._

_Please text Suga back she’s crying at my house and not even Daichi and spicy mapo tofu can console her._

Yamaguchi’s quiet sounding words were next.

_Please come back to practice. Everything’s going to be okay._

Even Tsukishima, who Kageyama had though hated her, had sent her a text.

_Queen, come back. The shrimp isn’t the same without you and some of us miss you._

And, of course, everywhere is littered with messages from Hinata.

_Why aren’t you answering my texts?_

_I’m coming over to your house._

_Okay your phone’s in your bag so that’s why you aren’t answering._

_Your mom says you’re sick so you better be on your deathbed if you’re missing volleyball practice._

_Kageyama, text me back._

_Kage-chan._

_Are you at school today?_

It went on and on, Hinata asking all sorts of questions and calling her all sorts of names, trying to get a response from her. It’s only when she finishes scrolling through the messages that she realizes that she’s crying, tears streaming down her face.

“Kage-chan?” Hinata asks gently. Kageyama wipes her eyes and tries to calm her breathing.

“I should…I should call Suga-san,” she stutters. “She seems the most worried, and she’ll tell Daichi-san and Asahi-san since apparently she’s over there crying.”

“Yeah Suga-san’s probably the one you should call,” Hinata agrees.

Kageyama pushes Suga-san’s contact and hits the green phone button.

“Kageyama! I’m so glad to hear from you,” Suga-san answers on the second ring. “How are you? Are you okay? Are you coming back to practice? Do we need to beat up Oikawa-san.”

“Suga, let her get a word in edgewise,” Daichi-san’s muffled voice calls from the background.

“Yes, Suga-san, I’m fine,” Kageyama answers in the lull. “You can tell Daichi-san that I’m coming back to practice tomorrow.”

“That’s great to hear!” Suga-san cheers. “Do you want to talk about anything?”

“I have Hinata here, but…yes, later, if you’ll listen to me,” Kageyama says quietly. “And Suga-san? Thanks for caring so much about me.”

“No problem,” Suga-san says flippantly. “You’re part of the team, and you’re our friend. Of course we care about you. Now, no more attacking girls just because they beat us in volleyball!”

“Okay,” Kageyama agrees easily, because that had kind of been a one-time thing.

“What movie do you want to watch?” she asks Hinata. They put in some dumb cartoon, and a few hours later when Kageyama’s mother comes home from work, she finds the two of them curled up around each other on the couch, fast asleep. She sighs happily, brushes the bangs from her daughter’s faces, and goes to the kitchen to start making dinner.

She’s interested in this new friend that her daughter seems so fond of.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, this one was a doozy. I don’t even know how it happened. I blacked out for five hours and the rough draft for this appeared. It did make me cry while writing it, since I touched on a lot of personal issues in this one (totally didn’t set out to do that). But it was a very therapeutic cry. I will probably do a few spinoffs from this because I want to put Kageyama and Hinata together, since this may be the most platonic fic I’ve ever written. Also maybe an Iwaoi spinoff, and I can’t say no to more Daisuga. This can be read as pairing or not, depending on your preference. Thanks for reading! I love comments!  
> HMU at musicprincess655 on tumblr!


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